Mike struggled to process the news. On the one hand, everything supported the fact that Brent was telling the truth. It almost felt good to hear his suspicions confirmed and know what he was working towards. On the other hand, trusting another human had become much harder over the course of the last 8 months, and he would be foolish to dismiss Brent’s presence in the valley as anything other than a threat. Mike knew that given the opportunity, Brent would stab him in the back in order to reap the very large reward the System had promised. But could he kill a man in cold blood, even knowing that he would respawn? Brent was disarmed and didn’t pose a direct threat to Mike, but could Mike live with himself if Brent even managed to just kill a few hobgoblins in the valley they thought they were safe in.

After several long moments of indecisions, during which Brent shifted uncomfortably, Mike looked up and said, “I’m sorry, but I am going to have to knock you out again so you don’t see everything inside the valley.”

Before Brent had a chance to react, Mike’s hand blurred forward and Brent slumped forward.

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Brent awoke in a strange cavern. Purple light dominated the atmosphere, the source of which appeared to be a large force field that dominated an entire side of the cavern, from floor to ceiling. He felt a compulsion to distance himself from the wall, so climbing to his feet, he began to search around the cave for an exit. After 30 minutes of exploring all of the sides, he was unable to see a way out.

Returning to his original position, he found some firewood, sweet potatoes, berries, what appeared to be flour, and dried fish. Carved into a stone was a note:

Putting you here until the battle is over, at which point we can discuss your release. There is enough food here to last you a few days. I’ll bring you more after that. If you try to leave, I will consider it an act of war against the valley. Consider this an opportunity to earn the valley’s trust.

–Mike

The note continued on a neighboring stone, almost as an afterthought:

P.S. Don’t go near the purple wall.

“I hate sweet potatoes.” he said as he picked up one of the offending objects and lobbed it at the Zone Border in frustration. It disappeared without a trace and panic started to creep in.

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Mike watched from the hidden doorway above as Brent threw his supplies into the forcefield. It didn’t make any sense to him why someone would waste the food.

Maybe I should have left him a recipe. He thought to himself.

From the time he had raided the village, he knew that the villagers had a larger variety of food than his valley had, but until this moment, he hadn’t realized that anyone could still afford to be a picky eater in the post-System society that he now found himself in.

Stretching his back with a soft groan, he turned and hurried towards the entrance to the dungeon. It had taken some of his precious time to bring the villager all the way through the Quicksilver Dungeon, extract all of the metal from the smaller cave to prevent the prisoner from learning to use it, and carve out some instructions for him. It was time he really didn’t have if Brent was to be believed, and the pressures of preparing the valley’s defenses was already mounting. Still, his conscience wouldn’t allow him to do any differently. Sacrifices had to be made in order to live within the parameters of right and wrong.

Activating Footsteps of the Wind, he put on a burst of speed and shot towards the exit. It had taken the whole of the night to make sure Brent wouldn’t hurt the valley, and there was much to do with the new day.

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Mike’s first order of business was a task he had been dreading for too long, not because it wasn’t enjoyable, but because he knew some hobgoblin was going to fail in following instructions and get hurt. Blackpowder was a dangerous mistress.

Having previously created the three main ingredients, the final step was soaking the combined powders in alcohol and leaving them to dry in the sun. One of the more intrepid hobs had been working with the distillery Mike had stolen from the village raid, and his first batches of alcohol were starting to sweep across the valley. Mike wouldn’t touch the stuff himself–alcohol was against his philosophy to remain unprepared for the safety of the village. But many of the hobgoblins had begun enjoying it, the miners in particular tended to gather for a group drink every night.

Gathering the powders, Mike instructed Creeanth to keep all hobgoblins away from the area, then mixed the powders in his tumbler, soaked them with several vessels of alcohol he had set aside for this purpose, and stood guard while it evaporated. Though the blackpowder wasn’t explosive until is was compressed, he didn’t trust the hobgoblins to not ruin this project if he stepped away.

As the sun disappeared, he gathered the powder and put it in his spatial storage bag where it would be safe. He then began forming a cannon from Quicksilver. He had originally planned on casting these, but even with the control he had over Quicksilver, it was an exceptionally hard process, made harder by his lack of sleep.

Dozing off for a few hours from midnight to 4 AM, he awoke and immediately kept working on his cannon design. With a fresh mindset, he was able to complete what looked like a usable prototype, and decided it was time to test out the powder.

Loading up the cannon, he lit the wick and dove for cover, well aware that all of his plans could go ary. A disappointing explosion sputtered from the canyon, followed by the iron cannonball rolling out and onto the ground, not two feet from where it had started.

Acknowledging that it would have been too lucky had it worked the first time, he pulled out some more black powder and decided to try again.

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By midmorning, Mike had optimized his cannon design in every possible way, and was only getting marginally better results. Finally, in the afternoon, Mike had turned to an idea he had been dismissing all morning, blasting powder. The stuff had been so strong that it had launched him through a wall of dirt and a hundred feet into the air, so he wasn’t worried about it doing the job, rather, he was worried that it might be too strong. He didn’t need Quicksilver shrapnel shredding through his horde during a battle. But without any other options, he decided to at least test it. It took him less than an hour to run to the cave and find enough blasting stone to keep him stocked for several days worth of testing, and he was soon back to his cannon.

It took another two days to get the cannon firing reliably, true to his worries, the cannon had exploded multiple times. Luckily, no one had been hurt, and he had gotten much faster at building the cannons now.

The process for loading and firing was different from a normal cannon. He first had to load it with black powder, then add about ¼ cup of crushed blasting powder, then he had to compress it carefully to avoid the whole thing exploding. Finally, the cannonball could be added. He watched in wonder as 20 tests in a row went off without incident. The velocity and power behind the weapon was far superior to any black powder weapon he had used before the System, and he knew he had the blasting powder to thank for that.

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Mike watched in horrified anticipation as the hobgoblins gleefully loaded up the cannon. He had been training some of his more intelligent hobs how to properly handle the gun, and they were finally practicing with live powder. He was usually a big fan of hands-on training throughout the entire process of teaching, but after watching one hobgoblin stick his head in the cannon after putting in the black powder, he had been forced to take a step back and practice with props.

The cannon erupted, disrupting his musings, and he parsed the gathered crowd expecting the worst. To his surprised delight, it appeared no one had been injured. Now to make as many more cannons as he could and train even more hobgoblins how to handle explosives that few humans would have been allowed to touch before the integration. Delightful.

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At the end of the two weeks, Mike surveyed his work with a critical eye. The main pass of the valley had been coated in Quicksilver, giving him the option to create a wall, spikes, or other formations if necessary. He had also coated the external walls on either side of the pass with Quicksilver, to ensure no one climbed in from that area.

He had dreams of coating the entire outside of his valley in Quicksilver, but alas, not enough could be mined in time, despite him allocating all free resources to the task. Amazingly, for as much Quicksilver as had been extracted from the dungeon, the cavern seemed to have just as much as it always had. Clearly, the Quicksilver, not the mythic rarity Skill, was the true prize for completing the quest. Thinking of Sonic Sounding caused his lip to curl in disgust. He had tried to find uses for it, but thus far, he had had no success.

Re-aligning himself to the task at hand, his gaze swept along the top side of the valley. Along the upper rim, he had posted the best trained scouts he had in regular intervals. Before the System, he wouldn’t have had to worry about a force climbing into his valley, as the walls were steep and treacherous. That wasn’t the case any longer. He was preparing for the worst, but hoping that Bart would go for a more direct assault on the valley. The other true entrance to the valley had been blocked off with as much debris as his army could move over the course of a single day. He had also stationed a small reserve army to defend the second entrance should the occasion require.

On top of the scouts patrolling the rim, he had erected beacon fires every 200 yards so that the scouts could signal where help was needed. His thoughts turned involuntarily to the previous night when one of the fires had been lit by one of his newer scouts. The creature had wanted to impress the rest of the scouts with his ability to start fires, which still remained a rare skill in the valley. Within 20 minutes, Mike had arrived at the site, two axes drawn and ready for battle, but a scared and guilty hobgoblin was the only soul to be found. Mike had been furious, and assigned the scout to patrol duty for the next two days. Now he worried about what would happen if a false alarm happened during the battle. At a minimum, it would cost the valley in blood.

Once again forcing himself to focus on the positive, his thoughts turned to the final preparation he had made. 45 cannons could be found within the valley’s defenses. 35 of which were stationed near the main valley entrance, with the other 10 placed on the other side of the valley at the blockade. Each cannon had a team of 5 hobgoblins that were trained as well as he could hope in so short a time. The casters were still churning out as many cannonballs and shot as they could, Mike was loath to shoot any Quicksilver at the enemy, not wanting them to have access to his most powerful resource.

The preparations for the valley complete, he decided to catch a quick nap before cramming in as much more training as he could before the fight started. At this point, any extra time the valley got was a godsend.